As supervisor of the character design aspect of the group project, my responsibilities included overseeing the development of the main characters involved in the animation, as well as trying to maintain a uniform look within each individual character due to the fact that each artist had his or her own unique artistic interpretation of how everything should look.
I had two other students helping me produce the traditional sketches for the characters. These character included a group of generic civilians, along with the protagonist – the superhero who we decided to name “Justin”. I came up with the concept art for the superhero keeping in mind the fact that we did not want him to fall under the category of a typical superhero. Instead, I wanted him to look as if he could blend into an average group of people which meant that I did not want to incorporate a flashy uniform or a super-toned, buffed body in the design.
Since our story takes place in the future, I wanted to add a few futuristic details, which of course, is apparent within the chest plate and the mechanical arm. The tubes integrated within his attire would act as a transportive system, supplying the source for his immortality. With the final approval of the superhero’s design, Justin was ready to evolve into something a little more three-dimensional.
Superhero Model
Personally, after having the opportunity to try out the main aspects involved in the computer animation pipeline, I have found modeling to be the most enjoyable. This particular model, Justin the Superhero, is the main character in a group project involving the entire animation class. Fortunately, I had the convenience of handling the two-dimensional design, as well the three-dimensional development of the main character. In this manner, I was able to take my concept art, import it into our 3D program (Maya), and begin building the superhero from nothing more than a mere cube.
I primarily used a method called polygonal modeling, and in some cases, I integrated a limited amount of nurbs modeling as well. I had never modeled in Maya before this year, and it proved to be a challenge in the beginning. However, as the year progressed, I felt more comfortable with the program, and decided to give myself more challenging characters to design.
The most difficult part of this model was definitely the mechanical arm. I had only been familiar with organic model up until this project, therefore, producing something of this sort was a new experience. I discovered that attention to detail is crucial when it comes to this type of modeling. Also, making sure that the mesh was clean and unbroken is necessary. At the moment, I am currently working on this model, and it will be coming to a completion soon.
1 Year 3D Animation Student, Nicole Saenz
